Annie Brooks is a performer, puppeteer and theatre maker based in Brighton. She is the artistic director of theatre company, Colossal Crumbs, which specializes in making highly visual theatre with puppets. She has designed and made puppets for Strangeface, Birmingham Stage Company, Whalley Range All Stars and Colossal Crumbs. Annie has perfromed most recently with Pins and Needles, Gomito, Whalley Range All Stars and Foul Play Productions.

After meeting an array of characters at the PAVA course at Brighton University, and after endless cups of tea, Annie decided to put all the strange characters that were dancing around in her brain out into the world in the form of puppets, toys, drawings and theatre shows. Her interest in sculptural set and costume was prominent in her first show, Colossal Crumbs, which incorporated these ideas with puppetry and silly dances. She works on a large scale (her biggest puppet to date towering at 10ft), whilst also altering perspective through the use of tiny, weeny puppets (they really are quite small)

Puppets are an important part of her work – enabling these odd creatures to come to life and frankly, to make it possible for a tomato to be the protagonist of a theatre show (after all, tomatoes need to have their say too)

"Under Emma Earle's direction, Raymond Briggs's illustrated story comes enchantingly to life...puppeteer Annie Brooks sends Santa's reindeer flying through the sky, I take a peek at the child's face: rapt wonder is what it expresses.

The Guardian"Also on stage is puppeteer Annie Brooks, skilfully manipulating a dog, a cat, a couple of reindeer and a mechanical hen"

Puppeteer Annie Brooks works hard and with immense skill to bring the pets to life. When the big moment comes and the reindeers set off on their journey, the look of pure wonderment on the little faces in the audience spoke volumes on what Christmas is all about.

A huge thanks to cast, crew and all those beans who came to The Never Ever Land Theatre at Secret Garden Party 2012 to see our show. A massive success! So good in fact, we have been invited back for 2013.